In Blog #46  I  talked about getting ready for store visits by upper management. In this blog I want to talk about Why the Nordstrom team in San Francisco was excellent.

James

As I said in Blog #45 Martha assigned the work bench to a guy named James. He made sure all the items were stocked at all times. We had foam pads, cork fillers, polish, heel slip pads, stretchers, bunion tools, vamp raisers and much more.

James made sure we had everything we needed and would call out people that were wasteful. Aside from that James was a true professional. He was always impeccably dressed. Plus he was courteous and thoughtful. We had amazing conversations and asked me a lot of questions to get to know me better.

The workbench was a fine tuned machine, he never skipped a beat. He was a great listener to fellow employees and the customers. I really like James and respected him too.

Norman

Norman was a pacesetter. Plus he had a very big personality and was into everyone’s business at least on the sales side. He knew what everyone was selling and how they were doing it. If he didn’t like something he would either call the person out or go to Michael. He didn’t care who it was either. There was a rule if a personal customer asked for you, it didn’t matter if you were on the list you would be called out of course. Norman would question wether it was a “real” personal customer. I steered clear of him but also admired how good of a salesperson he was.

Duoc

Duoc was another pacesetter employee. She was very sure of herself and was great with the customers. She was very knowledgeable about product which helped her sell so well. I thought she was great and we had great conversations about life in general. most of the time she didn’t get into others business so much, just did her thing

Jeannie

Jeannie was on another level than everyone else. She was very professionally dressed. Actually impeccably dressed. Most of the time she was soft spoken but everything she said was thoughtful and deliberate.

In addition she was also very knowledgeable about product and had an amazing following. Rarely on the list as she always had people asking for her. Whenever Martha needed some business to make the day, she’d ask everyone to call personal customers and Jeannie always delivered.

She was something to watch. Jeannie was always pleasant too, unless Norman got under her skin, then it was on. I always got along with her and I enjoyed learning from her.

Vicki

Vicki was the Store Manager. She had a presence about her. Strong, confident and very pleasant. Always knew the right thing to say. When she walked by the aisle though, you better be on your  -A- game, she liked everything to be perfect.

 Over the years, I grew to like her and ended up have a pretty good relationship with her. I admired her on how she could demand respect by her presence but also offer a caring sense to her as well. She was great to work with and I was lucky to have her as the First Nordstrom Store Manager to work for.

Vicki was awarded in 1994 the John W Nordstrom award for excellence and  became the Northern California Regional Manager in 1995.

So now you know…

Why the Nordstrom team in San Francisco was excellent…Martha was successful because she knew the importance to having a professional team. I’ve talked about this before and its so important. People make the difference!